


July 11, 2012

by Serpents_Cradle



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I can't believe that's a tag but mood, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, Listen I'm just a sucker for Ronan coping with K's death, Not yet anyways, Post-The Dream Thieves, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Rovinsky if you squint, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpents_Cradle/pseuds/Serpents_Cradle
Summary: Flashing a cocky grin, Kavinsky took the lighter from the other and quickly lit up his smoke, but he seemed to be holding back. Ronan regarded him with a mixture of contempt and curiosity. “Is there a reason tonight that you’re being an ass, or is it just the same moody bullshit as always?”Kavinsky’s expression shifted, and he took a long drag off of the cigarette he had perched in his fingers, then dramatically flicked it, still burning and barely smoked, out of the window of his Mitsubishi. “Am I real?”





	July 11, 2012

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea 1) because I read archieknight's beautiful Rovinsky fic from yesterday and 2) because my boyfriend and I were discussing how Ronan would react to the one living dreamer he had left dying, and thus this fic was born! Thanks to the wonderful @jennatalbot for betaing this for me!!

It began as many things do: swift and quiet, barely a whisper of a thought before Ronan was swept through his unconscious mind and again towards the imposing white car. Ronan waited under the streetlamp the same way he had before for the car to slow down and finally stop next to him. Its driver lowered a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses to stare at Ronan, but something was off about it tonight. “What do you want now, Princess?”

Ronan rolled his eyes and looked down to the unlit Marlboro Silver between Kavinsky’s fingers. “You looked like you could use a smoke,” he said, reaching into his pocket and feeling the cold metal of a dollar store lighter appear beneath his fingers. He offered it to the other man, then leaned back under the light of the lamp above him. 

Flashing a cocky grin, Kavinsky took the lighter from the other and quickly lit up his smoke, but he seemed to be holding back. Ronan regarded him with a mixture of contempt and curiosity. “Is there a reason tonight that you’re being an ass, or is it just the same moody bullshit as always?” 

Kavinsky’s expression shifted, and he took a long drag off of the cigarette he had perched in his fingers, then dramatically flicked it, still-burning and barely smoked, out of the window of his Mitsubishi. “Am I real?”

Taken aback, Ronan blinked. Excluding Orphan Girl, he had never met a dream-thing that seemed to be self-aware. He let the silence hang in the air, pregnant, for a long while, before Kavinsky just scoffed and lit a new cigarette. There was something solemn in his movements that the real Joseph lacked, a little blip in the dream cycle that showed he wasn’t quite natural, or maybe a tic his subconscious mind had supplied that he hadn’t thought of directly. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I’m still a dreamer, Lynch. I can tell when something is a forgery. It’s got this… Haziness to it.”

Ronan stole the lit cigarette from Kavinsky’s grasp and took a long pull, savoring the burn in his chest that came with it before handing it back to its owner. He let the smoke blow out of his nose on a long sigh and looked up. “You’re real,” he said, slowly, trying to parse out the best way to respond. “You’re here whenever I come. You react to me, you talk to me—”

Kavinsky barked out a sharp sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “You’re funny— Did you, did you know,” he said, a psychotic grin splitting his features as he tried to speak through the laughing cries, “As soon as I take the Mitsu past Nino’s, it clips out like a bad Bethesda game. Every time I pass the traffic light there, I’m back at the Strip. Same with the garage, and Aglionby. All of it. Like God didn’t bother to create anything outside of my little sphere of influence. I’m no more real than anything.”

Ronan didn’t remember moving past the streetlamp, but in a second he was in the passenger seat of the car, staring at Kavinsky for the first time since he’d started this. “You’re real enough. This place is just a memory, a moment suspended in time,” he explained, but it sounded stupid even to him. “You’re as real as the drugs you dream or Chainsaw. You’re just not… Alive yet.” Real but not quite living, as Ronan had felt for the past week. He had known his abilities had not made him invincible, but it was still hard to believe that Kavinsky, flaming and deadly and everything a thief should be, would be killed by his own creation.

Kavinsky shook his head. “That shit’s not real, man. It just feels real. Did you know the sun never rises, here? I thought I was just too high to notice at first, but no. Even the weather doesn’t change. Perfect, cloudless sky,” he murmured, waving the cigarette in his hands. “But none of that gave it away for me. I was too damn dense to see through it. You know what gave it away?” His voice broke like he was afraid of the answer, but he didn’t care enough to hide it. “The addiction. It’s gone. I didn’t smoke for four days and I didn’t even notice until I reached for the pack and it wasn’t there. The depression of it doesn’t burn in my chest. It’s all gone.”

The Mitsubishi shook when Kavinsky kicked at the door once, possibly in frustration. Ronan knew, knew in his heart and mind, that Kavinsky was dead, but this one was all too real for him in his reactions and his words. Dreamer had become dream thing, but he was still himself. Sentient.

“This is how I stay sane after it all,” Ronan admitted, voice quiet in a way it never was outside of his dreams. It seemed to echo even off the small shell of the Evo. “Coming here once in a while. Coming back, or at least as close as I can. You’re a piece of trash, K. But that doesn’t mean you deserved to die.” He murmured. “I wanted you to live—I wanted you to be happy. Living memory, not a decaying one. This place is eternal because for it to move on you’d have to die.”

Kavinsky did not move, still as a cat waiting to pounce, the fire behind his eyes either dead or dying. No human could dream Kavinsky’s spirit, Greywaren or thief. He was merely a fraction of the man he once was. “Living doesn’t mean alive, Lynch,” he said, and at Ronan’s confused expression, he just let out a low breath. “Say I were to jumpstart this place, like a stolen car. Make it move forward even though you’ve dreamed it to stay stuck on this night. I’ll still die. _Proko_ will still die. You said it yourself. Living memory. None of these choices are mine,” he looked down. “I never should have brought him back. He’s… He’s just a shell of the Ilya I knew. Not the same. If you keep me here, suspended, I’ll end up like him.”

Quietly, Ronan flicked the ash from the second cigarette he didn’t even remember lighting onto the floor of the Mitsubishi. Kavinsky gave him a dirty look, but as Ronan suspected, no violent outburst or cry of rage. His fears were confirmed—Kavinsky was just a shell now. There were only traces of the man he knew. This moment, however realistic it was, was controlled by him, and it would stay frozen at 10:30 on July 4. There was no way to further it. “Have you noticed that the crickets only have one pattern? Like an audio file, looped over and over. I never thought I’d give a shit, but I miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“The sun, the seasons, the burn of withdrawal. No change. It’s nothing now. Hell, I even miss my classes at Aglionby. At least before I had a choice as to whether or not to go.” Kavinsky laughed softly. It sounded broken. “I am still a dreamer. A thief. If I told the sun to rise, would it? Would this all fix itself? Would… Would I die? Would the addiction come back? The hurt? The burn?” He demanded, and Ronan was surprised to see his eyes wet with tears. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Kavinsky cry. “The love? Anything but this goddamn… Emptiness.”

Ronan looked into his eyes, ice blue meeting pale green. He didn’t know what to say. “If that sun rises, this world will burn.”

“One singular moment for eternity, or death. It’s a shitty fucking choice and you know it. How could you do this?” He demanded, tears springing free and running down his cheeks. “I thought I might get a chance to be happy again when the party just kept going, and then the sun didn’t rise. My phone wouldn’t work. And I knew, I fucking—” he let out a shaky breath. “I knew it was fake. I feel like a damn butterfly pinned to a corkboard.”

Ronan grabbed Kavinsky’s wrist before he brought the cigarette to his lips again. “This is your kingdom, Joseph,” he said, putting all of his regret and anger and emotion in his eyes and not his words. He knew he couldn’t lose it or it would implode again. “This is your memory now. You know it’s fake, so what? If and when that sun rises, it doesn’t have to mean shit. You’ve already ruled the night for a goddamn week. What’s stopping you from ruling the day?”

To his own chagrin, Kavinsky felt his lip begin to quiver. “I don’t want to _live_ , Lynch. I wish you had just let me fucking die instead of making me into this _zombie_ ,” he spat, and Ronan could see how close he was to losing it completely. The edges of his dream blurred like they’d been painted in watercolor.

“I don’t want you to die!” Ronan burst out, and the dream rippled around him under the weight of the truth he’d let out. He swore, reaching for the steering wheel of the car, but he knew it was too late. This dream was not meant to exist at all, which made it even more fragile. 

Kavinsky and the Mitsu disappeared again, for the seventh night in a row, and he was left to grieve alone on the concrete floor of his bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at https://kuweiyulbo.tumblr.com/ ! I have a lot of feelings about these two


End file.
